This is a pretty bad article. The NSA wouldn't violate the constitution? Give me a break. They violate it every minute of every day. They're using it as toilet paper, as they attempt to store every piece of digital information on every American they can, in their mega data center in Utah.<p>You'd be better off starting from a list of big Federal agencies that aren't violating the Constitution every day of the week.<p>It's not speculation that Echelon existed, it's an openly admitted fact that the program was not only developed but live. It was used to help catch, as two examples: Pablo Escobar and Carlos the Jackal.
<i>the NSA cannot intercept signals within the United States</i><p>Oh, really?<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s976iyaO39A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s976iyaO39A</a><p>In the first few minutes of that Bill Binney says this:<p>"I was focused at foreign threats. The problems I solved, and the way I solved them, were directed at foreign threats, and foreign potential threats. Unfortunately, after 9/11 they took my solutions and directed them at this country, and <i>everybody</i> in it."
Just because what they are doing is legal doesn't mean it isn't shady. You can tell they've gone far and wide to push the boundaries slowly as far as they could. It is like they can't slice your throat but they can surely wave the knife a inch away from your head while claiming they are still following the rules.<p>Then perhaps some will wonder, how come people mistrust the government?<p>The Constitution was written centuries ago. Before internet, before phones. And I guess for a long time people trusted the government to keep up with the spirit of the Constitution. It seems the opposite is happening. Those who one expects to know, respect and defend it are the ones chipping away at its edges, bit by bit.<p>This leads to trust issues. It is like entrusting someone with a job, and then they find a way to screw it up then come back and say technically I didn't do anything wrong because "I followed all the rules". Yes they followed all the rules, but they also managed to lose the trust. Now the relationship is adversarial as opposed to one of mutual support.<p>Now I always wondered about the peons. They ones working in the trenches who have implemented all these technical "features" . One or two have come out and revealed it. What about others? Will there be death bed confessions, 20 years from now? Don't anyone of them care or see what they are doing or what they are enabling? Just wondering what goes on in their heads.
Ah, when you look at it critically the death of 3000 people, 9/11, has lead to 2 never ending wars, the curtailling of people rights all over the world as states rushed to implement broad anti-terror laws to please the US and funnily enough, from where I seat in Kenya, the complete dismissal of the very thing that makes America America; it's constitution
Also, dont forget the HW backdoors provided to the NSA by Cisco for over a decade...<p>And the NSA chip fab...<p><a href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/10/29/1456242/hiding-backdoors-in-hardware" rel="nofollow">http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/10/29/1456242/hiding-b...</a>
Q for those of you with a legal mind: how could one "extend"/reinterpret the US Forth Amendment to make it apply to things like internet logs or credit card receipts? Why should doing something via a 3rd party business make the information concerning what you do less "intimate"?<p>...and pondering more on it: why should businesses not benefit from the same rights to privacy as individuals do?
It's crazy... I remember in high school (I think 2001) I gave a speech to my Social Studies class about Carnivore (previously DCS1000). I was incensed by it, and by what it represented. I now read this stuff, and just kinda quietly think "what next?"
Doesnt end-to-end encryption for your calls as offered through open sourced apps like Redphone secure your conversations so that nobody can listen in.<p><a href="https://whispersystems.org/" rel="nofollow">https://whispersystems.org/</a>
I guess people who use encryption stand out. But how can we avoid Watergate type abuse of this information. Say if I'm a Tea Party candidate, I must compete with a one way mirror?